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Counting Flowers on the Wall …
How bored can one person get?
“Counting flowers on the wall,
that don’t bother me at all.
Playin’ solitaire till dawn
with a deck of fifty-one.
Smokin’ cigarettes and
watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now don’t tell me
I’ve nothing to do.” (Statler Brothers.)
Since my forced retirement and then my Covid isolation, my world has shrunk. I used to talk to at least 26 people a day during the semester — usually at least 50. Now I talk to my plants. I know it’s supposed to be good to talk to house plants, but these are outdoor plants. I talk to the Sego palm I thought died after the winter but now has 8 fronds instead of the four it started with. I cheer it on every day as I walk around the yard for exercise.
I talk to the crepe myrtle I planted last spring. Today I had a big thrill when its last buds of the season burst into bloom. I complimented it. “You go, girl.”
I talk to all the little pine trees we’ve found growing out there. I give them little drinks of water and encourage them. I scold the baby tree for not having grown much this summer. I tell him he has to grow up big and strong, like his brothers and sisters.
